On DiDonato's current tour, she's compromising by offering some big, dramatic concert pieces, starting with Haydn's "Scena di Berenice," which she describes as a miniature opera, "a theatrical morsel for me to bite into."

Looking at the kids, you can see them as an idealized America in miniature: the white kids (each from different ethnic backgrounds) working with the black kid; one representing emotion while one is brawn and one is the brains - ultimately, a coalition of different individuals contributing their unique talents to take down the enemy.

Every businesses needs documents employees can refer to, pantra-laterally, to help steer their decisions through times of uncertainty and deal with rapidly fluxing global business enterprise environment, secure touch points that provide direction and solace, Rocks of Gibraltar in miniature, if you will.

The miniature edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme Broadcasting House this morning (4 December 2011) lasted 45 instead of the usual 60 minutes and contained a report of a remarkable microscopic feat, viz the engraving of a list of names on the surface of a single football boot stud, which may cause you to recall the even smaller scale used in the manufacture of silicon chips. It is believed that miniaturists like Nicholas Hillyard worked with exceedingly fine brushes and executed their work under a hand glass.

Surprising etymology: nothing to do with the Latin root for "little, less" found in minus, minor, minimum, minuscule. Rather, it comes from minium "vermilion, cinnabar; red lead", and refers to the use of vermilion to highlight letters in manuscripts (rubrication) and thus to the colouring of marginal pictures in manuscripts.